Ever since the idea of the vampire came into being, there have been stories that define each iteration. Whether that’s the grotesque Nosferatu or Matt Berry’s preening Laszlo from What We Do in the Shadows, there’s a nocturnal freak out there for everyone.
But arguably the most influential vampire to have shaped how we see the infernal creature today is from the 1958 film Dracula starring Christopher Lee. His take on the character introduced Dracula as a more suave, fanged version of the vampire.
And now, there’s good news for classic horror fans: a restoration of the film is coming to 4K Blu-ray and is being released in cinemas. It includes around three minutes of missing scenes that were originally shown only in Japan when the film was released.
The 4K restored edition was handled by Silver Salt Restoration, and I got the chance to get a taste of the process in its London studio, and to speak to the team behind the curtain.
Hope for the market
The state of physical media is a contentious topic, but Anthony Badger, Head of Restoration, has hope for the future. “It’s certainly the end of the day of buying a film in DVD at Tesco. But I think there will always be a place for it,” he says.
He adds that people seem to value the tangibility of holding a physical disc in your hands.
“I think it’s been fascinating that a lot of the more obscure Hammer stuff that isn’t horror, has actually sold really well too. When’s the last time anyone’s seen that? Like 10 pm on BBC Two in 1997. So it’s fascinating – the wealth of stuff. And there is a hunger for that.”
The editions that originally appeared, he explains, would often have been a “horrific” transfer. “I think with a lot of the older transfers, it is a barrier to enjoying it because you can’t quite hear the sound properly and the image is all blurry.”
Badger says he hopes this prompts people to look more into their archives.
4K editions, the team agrees, have more of a draw for collectors too. Mark Stanborough, Head of Restoration at Hammer, says that “when you look at some of the Hammer titles that we’ve done, they could have been filmed last week.
“They look so sharp and it’s amazing,” he smiles.
A trip to the pictures
As well as being released on 4K UHD and Blu-ray, Dracula will be shown in UK cinemas in October.
When it was first shown at the pictures, people were shocked at the graphic nature of the grizzly killings – and it still makes for tense viewing today.
Stanborough says that it was important for Dracula to get a release on the big screen. He adds: “We did Curse of Frankenstein, and I think that went into 150 cinemas and was very popular. And obviously, Dracula is the bigger film, the one that everybody knows.”
Badger says that Dracula presented the challenge of removing sudden colour changes and fringing, especially in the cut elements: “In the cut elements that were preservation elements, you tend to often get issues with it when you recombine the colour channels together from monochromatic film.”
This results in, he says, the different colours often not lining up perfectly so the combined image will be one colour, and then it will “slowly or abruptly change to a different colour”.
He continues: “We had to lock the colours even in the original negative, which had age related fading and degradation, because it is a lot harder [to colour grade] if it’s not the same colour from frame to frame.”
The Dracula 4K Limited Collector’s Edition is available for pre-order now from the Hammer website – and I can’t wait to get it into our test room to challenge the best home cinema products out there.
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